Blog No. 269 – Successfully Dealing With Terrible Situations, Part 5 – 4 June 2025

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

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When I finished the last Blog, I had just passed the exams needed to graduate with a degree from Monash University.

I passed the exams by refusing to panic and by mapping out the only course of action that I thought might enable me to graduate.

There were some significant obstacles to overcome before I ever had the opportunity to sit the exams.

Today, I will talk about the Hong Kong Flu.  It should have killed me, but I threw it off me so I could do something I had to do.

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It rains a lot in Ireland and Margaret loved going to Ireland – so we went as often as we could scrape the money together.  It poured with rain when I walked in this forest in Ireland on the 13th of December 2017.  We were hoping for a White Christmas.

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Margaret always wanted to spend Christmas in Ireland so I surprised her and we went to Ireland before Christmas, 2017.  I took this photo on the 13th of December 2017.  Margaret loved Christmas in a country where it rained and was cold.  At home, a cool Christmas Day is one where the temperature does not rise above 30 degrees Celsius.  We do get Christmases like this, but not often.

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I found a plaque to one of Ireland’s greatest women in the forest when I walked in the rain on the 13th of December 2016.  The plaque to Nano Nagle reads:

In the face of fear, she chose to be daring, In the face of anxiety, she chose to trust, In the face of impossibility, she chose to begin To universal misery She proposed ministry to person, To ignorance, knowledge To disillusionment, tenacity of purpose, and to multiple vexations,  singleness of heart Faced with failure, she held fast to hope, Faced with death,  she believed in a living future, and programme for that future she gave in one word, love

I agree with every word the plaque says.  You do not have to be a saint to do the impossible, but you do have to keep going when you want to lie down and give up.

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Go with a clear, open and receptive spirit, and the universe will not treat you badly.”

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I got the Hong Kong Flu before I was able to sit my exams at the end of 1969.  It was a terrible illness.  As far as I can see, it was much worse than the covid pandemic in 2020.  This is what Wiki says about the Hong King Flu.

The Hong Kong flu, also known as the 1968 flu pandemic, was an influenza pandemic that occurred between 1968 and 1970 and which killed between one and four million people globally. It is among the deadliest pandemics in history, and was caused by an H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus. …. The pandemic reached Australia in September 1968, resulting in a severe epidemic among the general population of the Northern Territory; however, no further outbreaks were reported elsewhere until the following year. Generally mild outbreaks began to be reported in mid-May 1969. In Melbourne, influenza broke out in the suburbs in mid-June, developing into an epidemic that peaked about 20 July and had subsided by mid-August. In Sydney, the disease broke out at the beginning of July and continued into August. Another epidemic, more widespread and severe than the first, afflicted the Northern Territory in 1969.

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My fiancée came to visit me in my tiny flat in Elsternwick after she finished work on Friday 10 October 1969.  I was feeling unwell when she arrived but I still met her at the local railway station.

Shortly after she arrived, my health deteriorated rapidly.

The Hong Kong flu had been bringing much misery to Melbourne, including death.

I had Hong Kong Flu and I was very ill indeed.

As I lay on the bed, I had a very high fever.  

My friend wiped my face with a damp towel.  

I needed to have my face washed because the fever was making me sweat.  As I lay feeling terrible, I watched as steam rose around my face.  The fever had made my face so hot that the sweat was evaporating off my face.  I have never heard of this happening since then, but I know this happened to me.

I wondered how my fiancé was going to get home.  It was a cold, wet Friday night in Melbourne.  If she travelled home alone, it would be a dangerous trip indeed.  I decided I could not let her go home by train, even though she insisted she would be fine on the train.  It would not be a single train journey.  She would have to get a train to Melbourne, change stations, get another train and then wait for a bus to take her home from the station.

The only safe way for my fiancé to get home was if I drove her in my Morris Minor.

Before I could drive her home, I had to finish the fever, stop sweating, stop evaporating sweat into the air and get out of bed.

Half an hour later, I was driving her home.

We arrived safely and I collapsed onto a bed.

I banished the fever for the time I needed to banish it – just long enough to do the 40 minute drive to get my fiancé home.

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Terrible situations can be overcome.  Whatever you do, do not panic.

Add meaning to your life by acting with purpose.

When you add meaning to your life, the way out of the terrible situations becomes clearer.

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I will tell you more tomorrow.